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Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

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Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#101

Post by toyg »

bee_rider wrote: post #73

I wonder why they went with WYSIWIG in the title despite having WYSIWYG in the article. Anyway, hard to blame the folks who invented it, since it was early days, but WYSIWYG was a truly terrible idea. It heavily implies the need (although, doesn’t technically demand it) to have user input produce only local changes, so we’ve been cursed with all these office documents with terrible spacing. It also ruins our ability…

WYSIWYG democratised computerised printing and other areas, arguably providing the backbone of the PC revolution.

You're mistaking Microsoft's specific implementation fumbles with an interaction mode that helps billions of people every day. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are plenty of good WYSIWYG implementations out there.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#102

Post by morsch »

FjordWarden wrote: post #85

I've always missed is this X.org behaviour on OSX where you copy just by selecting text and past text by pressing the middle mouse button.

Yeah, and I keep pasting the wrong thing because the terminal emulator tries to simulate the X behavior (which is very useful) but doesn't maintain a separate buffer like X does.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#103

Post by II2II »

chongli wrote: post #89
bluGill wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not doubting you were productive with it. However that does not make it better, it just makes it what you know. User experience experts have studied this for a long time, and they all conclude that you need more than one button. (there isn't agreement on the best number as there are some trade offs, but one is clearly not enough) The world has a real problem with people arguing what they know is best without any…

I have some older relatives who were actually able to use a computer back then, thanks to the simplicity and brilliant design of Classic Mac OS. Now they are essentially shut out of computing for the rest of their lives. They can just barely use their cell phones to make calls and send the odd text. They do all their banking over the phone. There are tons of people like this. Apple used to be the absolute market lead…

While Apple's ability to create "simple and brilliant" designs in the past can be attributed to the motivation and talent of their staff, I don't think you can say their current failure to do so implies the opposite. We live in a very different world. Computers are expected to do more and, regardless of how much Apple despises it, computers are expected to interact with other systems.

Just think of Hypercard. Many people here will talk about how great it was, and it was great. Yet the most talented developers and designers in the world couldn't recreate it in a form that is both simple and reflects the needs of the modern world. It would always end up lacking essential features or be burdened by an overabundance of functionality.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#104

Post by klelatti »

> He even convinced Apple to invest in a newly created company, Advanced RISC Machines Ltd., also in Cambridge, that would produce them.

And that stake was quite possibly crucial in helping Apple survive.

> Plus it's on record that Apple made a total of $1.1 billion out of selling those shares, which represented a profit of 366 times its original investment. That money helped Apple survive, and Jobs decision to cut the Newton — with its ARM processor — was also part of the surgery needed to keep Apple alive.[1]

[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/09/05/apple-arm-have-be...

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#105

Post by AlbertCory »

> So why haven’t you heard of him?

Because you've had your head under a rock? It was headline news when he died (which was after this was published).

> “And the question I remember most was from Steve Jobs. He said, ’You guys are sitting on a gold mine here. Why aren’t you making this a product?’”

Xerox WAS making it into a product (the Star). Of course Larry couldn't tell him about that. It failed, just like the Lisa did.

> As one of Tesler’s first tasks at PARC, he and a co-worker wrote a paper on the future of interactive computing, which for the first time talked about cut-and-paste as a way of moving blocks of text, images, and the like. It also described representing documents and other office objects stored on the computer as tiny images—icons—instead of as a list of names [see photo, ].

The "co-worker" was David Canfield Smith, who was directly involved in the Star, unlike Larry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt_zpqlgN0M. (he IS a little stiff in this)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OwG_rQ_Hqw

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#106

Post by AlbertCory »

bee_rider wrote: post #73

I wonder why they went with WYSIWIG in the title despite having WYSIWYG in the article. Anyway, hard to blame the folks who invented it, since it was early days, but WYSIWYG was a truly terrible idea. It heavily implies the need (although, doesn’t technically demand it) to have user input produce only local changes, so we’ve been cursed with all these office documents with terrible spacing. It also ruins our ability…

WYSIWIG was revolutionary in its time. Even the Alto didn't really use it, although you could turn it on if you were masochistic.

> describe things on an abstract level

That's exactly what ordinary users do NOT want.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#108

Post by AlbertCory »

bluGill wrote: post #29

One button mouse was one of the worst inventions. Mice need at least 3 buttons to be useful. You sometimes need to select something and sometimes you need to launch it. Or you need to select in several different ways. Because of this miss-invention they had to invent the double-click and all the complexity of timing (try making double click for someone old an nearing senile and someone young and fast with the same ti…

The Alto used a three-button mouse. It was Charles Irby and Dave Smith who decided it would be two for the Star. It was a bitter debate, but they won.

When it was three, every Alto program had its own set of conventions for them. There was no way that could have been unified for a multi-purpose computer.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#109

Post by AlbertCory »

detourdog wrote: post #54
kps wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative, as used e.g. by the Xerox Star, was select-and-copy/move. The advantage over cut-and-paste is that you don't have invisible fragile state. However, the Star implementation had copy and move modes (select source, COPY, mouse to destination, CLICK) and Tesler hated modes. I don't know why Star didn't use the modeless version (select source, mouse to destination, COPY).

The mother of all demos had a chorded keyboard, a mouse,a regular keyboard, and video conferencing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

You're talking about the keyset.

Most Alto users didn't even use theirs until MazeWar came along. Then tech support was flooded with bad keysets that people wanted to start using.

Re: Larry Tesler pioneered cut-and-paste, the one-button mouse, WYSIWYG (2005)

#110

Post by AlbertCory »

alexpotato wrote: post #91
mark-r wrote: post #6

It amazes me that something as simple and obvious as cut and paste had to be invented. Even more amazing that we can actually point to the person that did it.

Almost everything you see or use around you was invented at some point. e.g. the following things were all invented: - that a human dwelling has space between adjacent dwellings and/or eventually streets (straight streets came even later) - punctuation and spaces between words (looking at you Ancient Greek) - what word to use when answering the phone ("ahoy hoy" was one proposed option) It really is true what Steve J…

Demonstrably untrue, since humanity was made up of people who lived happily without those things and never even thought of them. Probably even laughed at them when they first appeared.
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